Public Broadcasting Gets a Budgetary Lift

By STEPHEN LABATON

Published: July 12, 2005

A senior Republican and a senior Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee endorsed overturning proposed cuts to the budget of public broadcasting on Monday, while the chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting defended himself against accusations by Democrats that he has injected politics into programming.

''I have brought the issue of political balance -- common-sense political balance -- to the debate,'' said Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, the corporation's chairman, in his first appearance before Congress since recent disclosures that he was under investigation by the corporation's inspector general for a series of decisions and payments to consultants that he has said were necessary to ensure balance in programming.

Others have criticized Mr. Tomlinson's decisions as interference with programming, and three weeks ago, 16 Democrats in the Senate called on President Bush to remove him.

The decisions under review include the hiring of a former official of a conservative journalism training organization to monitor several programs, notably ''Now'' with Bill Moyers; payments of $15,000 to two Republican lobbyists last year to help defeat a proposal to have more broadcasters on the corporation's board; and the use of a White House official to help create a new office of ombudsman at the corporation to monitor balance in programs.

Appearing before a Senate appropriations subcommittee, Mr. Tomlinson defended his decision to order the corporation to pay more than $14,000 to retain Fred Mann, a former official at the National Journalism Center, which was founded by the American Conservative Union, to monitor the Moyers program, along with programs featuring David Brancaccio (Mr. Moyers's successor on ''Now''), Diane Rehm, Tavis Smiley and Tucker Carlson.

He said some of the programs were monitored to demonstrate that, in contrast to Mr. Moyers's program, they were more balanced.

In the name of political balance, Mr. Tomlinson also rebuffed questions from Democratic members about his prodding of the corporation to provide $4 million to produce a weekly program that is broadcast on most public stations on Fridays and features members of the conservative editorial page of The Wall Street Journal.

''Law requires a diversity of opinions, and on Friday evenings, public broadcasting would do well to reflect conservative points of view as it did so eloquently liberal points of view,'' he said in the written portion of his testimony. ''There is an important audience for the liberal advocacy journalism that is Bill Moyers. The law, however, requires CPB to encourage balance when such programming is presented.''

Mr. Tomlinson said that the debate over balance was harming broadcasting by jeopardizing public support. But on Monday the corporation and its supporters who seek to restore spending cuts imposed by the House received a strong endorsement from two of the most senior members of the Senate.

Last month, the House of Representatives voted to restore some cuts to the public broadcasting system's budget when it approved a measure to keep the corporation's budget at $400 million. But it also cut the $23 million ''Ready to Learn'' program, which contributes to some children's shows on public television, and also rejected proposals to provide an additional $50 million for upgrading public broadcasting's aging satellite technology and $39 million for converting to digital television.

Senator Ted Stevens, the Alaska Republican who once headed the Appropriations Committee and continues to play a major role in spending issues, proposed restoring those cuts because, he said, the money was essential to the preservation of the system, particularly in states like Alaska that have greater difficulty raising private money for public broadcasting. Defending Mr. Tomlinson, Mr. Stevens also said that some programs occasionally were biased and that the corporation ought to take steps to ensure balance, but that those issues were beside the point.

''I deplore the problem that there are some who want to exploit the system for their own political views,'' he said. ''Public broadcasting should take what has happened as a wake-up call.''

A senior Democratic member of the committee, Senator Daniel K. Inouye of Hawaii, also endorsed restoring the cuts.

If, as expected, the Senate restores the cuts, then House and Senate lawmakers would have to reconcile their competing measures in a conference committee.

Mr. Tomlinson replied that Friday evenings were already adequately balanced. ''If we had liberal advocacy on Friday for an hour, we should have conservative advocacy for an hour,'' he said. ''There is no one I know who does not regard Bill Moyers as liberal advocacy.''

Mr. Stevens then came to Mr. Tomlinson's defense.

''I think Bill Moyers is biased, and I respect him for it,'' Mr. Stevens said. ''I applaud you for recognizing that and for counterbalancing it.''

Mr. Tomlinson was also criticized by the subcommittee's chairman, Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, who said it was inappropriate for the corporation to have used taxpayer money to hire two Republican lobbyists last year.

''Why pay $10,000 to get insights into a senator?'' Mr. Specter asked. ''Why not pick up the phone and simply call the senator? When we see these reports and you confirm it, it raises questions about the propriety of the expenditure.''

The hearing also featured the debut of Patricia Harrison as the corporation's president. The choice of Ms. Harrison, a former co-chairwoman at the Republican National Committee and former official in the State Department with no significant experience in broadcasting, had been strongly opposed by public broadcasting executives. Five days into the job, Ms. Harrison said that she was ''committed to protecting the nonpartisan nature of public broadcasting'' and was a faithful supporter of its mission, in particular its role in educational television.

''I think about my last day on the job -- I have a strong enough ego that I want to say that, when I leave, the institution is stronger,'' she said. ''I feel confident that I'm a fair person. I have a great deal of integrity. Plus I come from Brooklyn, New York, and I'm an Italian-American.''

Photo: Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, left, and Patricia Harrison at hearing yesterday. (Photo by Carol T. Powers for The New York Times)(pg. E7)